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Constitution(s)

Thursday 22nd of October 2026

The Constitution of the United States According to the U.S. Senate, there have been 11,848 attempts to amend the U.S. Constitution. But only twenty-seven of them have been succcesful. America's Constitution has been amended only twelve times since Reconstruction, most recently in 1992 —  more than three decades ago. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, Tyranny of the Minority   [27/11,848 = 0.002279 percent success rate  — a snowball's chance in Hell of amending it] © 2023 Kwiple.com
The Constitution of the United States The Constitution of 1787 now bears some resemblance, though, to the initial system of government, the Articles of Confederation (1777). The Articles were widely considered a governmental failure because they did not address the evident need for effective national government. Richard M. Valelly, American Politics © 2018 Kwiple.com
The Constitution of the United States [D]o we not have every reason to undertake a serious and responsible examination of possible alternatives to our present American Constitution? Or, at the very least, isn't it time – well past time – that we stop thinking of our Constitution as a sacred text and begin to think of it as nothing more, or less, than a means for achieving democratic goals? Robert A. Dahl, How Democratic Is the American Constitution?  © 2018 Kwiple.com
The Constitution of the United States Few Americans are aware that under the Constitution, a candidate could lose the popular vote and the Electoral College and still become president. In fact, it’s already happened [in 1824]. … In other words, assuming Mr. Trump is still a free man, he could be picked by  the House to be the 47th president, even if  Mr. Biden wins millions more popular votes and the most electoral votes. James Wegman, New York Times, October 14, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
The Constitution of the United States For my part, I believe that the legitimacy of the constitution ought to derive solely from its utility as an instrument of democrtic government —nothing more, nothing less. Robert A. Dahl, How Democratic Is the American Constitution?  © 2018 Kwiple.com
The Constitution of the United States From the census of 2000 it is easy to calculate that an amendment could be blocked by thirty-four senators from the seventeen smallest states with a total population of 20,495,875, or 7.28 percent of the population of the United States. If miraculously the amendment were to pass the Senate it could then be blocked by thirteen state legislatures in the smallest states with a total population of 10,904,865, or 3.87 percent of the population of the United States. Robert A. Dahl © 2018 Kwiple.com
The Constitution of the United States I don't think it's a living document. I think it's dead. More precisely, I think it's enduring. It doesn't change. I think that needs to be orthodoxy. Antonin Scalia © 2016 Kwiple.com
The Constitution of the United States In some respects, originalism is just a fig leaf for making up what you want to make up, just like you can find whatever you like from the Bible. Originalism is a licence to be creative. Eric Posner © 2020 Kwiple.com
The Constitution of the United States It would be easier to convert America into a French-speaking country than amend its constitution. Edward Luce, Financial Times, October 6, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
The Constitution of the United States Our constitution not only permits divided government,  it cannot prevent divided government. And it provides no way out except by elections at fixed intervals— elections that may only reproduce the existing divisions or inaugurate new ones. Robert A. Dahl, How Democratic Is the American Constitution?  © 2018 Kwiple.com
The Constitution of the United States The people made the Constitution, and the people can unmake it. It is the creature of their own will, and lives only by their will. John Marshall, in Cohen v. Virginia [1821] © 2023 Kwiple.com
The Constitution of the United States [T]he proliferation of the language of “history and tradition” is turning origi- nalism from an ideology of constitutional interpretation into something more like a legal requirement.  Judges are expected to do historical analysis — not rigorous analysis, but the kind that a Fox News host will agree with.  Conservative originalists seem to see them- selves as the true heirs of the Founders, and therefore, when they examine the Founders, they can see only themselves, as if looking in a mirror. Adam Setwer, The Atlantic, January/February 2024 © 2024 Kwiple.com
The Constitution of the United States Thus the requirement that an amendment must gain the votes of two-thirds of the members of the Senate gives a veto power to Senators from the small states, and these Senators may act in concert with other colleagues who foresee a reduction in the influence of their states on the presidency. Robert A. Dahl, How Democratic Is the American Constitution?  © 2018 Kwiple.com
The Constitution of the United States To assume that this country has remained democratic because of its Constitution seems to me an obvious reversal of the relation; it is much more plausible to suppose that the Constitution has remained because our society is essentially democratic. Robert A. Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory  © 2018 Kwiple.com
The Constitution of the United States We are living through a time of constitutional inversion. When it comes to the religion clauses in the First Amendment and the equal-protection guarantee in the Fourteenth Amendment, what was once constitutionally prohibited is now constitutionally required. … The trajectory of the religion clauses and the equal-protection clause share a driving force: opposition to Brown v. Board of Education and a desire to limit the reach of that decision. Leah Litman, The Atlantic, October 31, 2020 © 2023 Kwiple.com
The Constitution of the United States  What's the Constitution between friends? Timothy J. Campbell, purported reponse to Grover Cleveland after Cleveland refused to support a bill Campbell favored on the grounds that it was unconstitutional © 2021 Kwiple.com
The Constitution of the United States  With the founders' econnomic assumptions collapsing under the weight of industrial transformation, the critical question was whether the republican constitutional system could survive the shift from productive property ownership to wages. Wage labor posed challenges to republicanism. Wage laborers were dependent on other people for their economic survival, and that dependence conflicted with republicanism's requirement that citizens be free and independent. Ganesh Sitaraman, The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution © 2021 Kwiple.com
Constitutions [I]t might not be a bad idea if a democratic country, once every twenty years or so, assembled a group of constitutional scholars, political leaders and informed citizens to evaluate its constitution in the light not only of its experience but also of the rapidly expanding body of knowledge gained from the experiences of other democratic countries. Robert A. Dahl, On Democracy  © 2018 Kwiple.com
 
Constitutions There is a reason why, when choosing their own constitutions, no other country has for long survived with a replica of the American model –and why when guiding the design of constitutions for others, as they did in post-war Germany and Japan, Americans have always suggested solutions quite unlike the one under which they live. Economist, July 12, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com